2009 September | Cr@zyEye Music Services

More Music Industry News: Album Decline Slows, Imeem Gets $6M, TubeRadio, Mulligan: “Radical Overhaul” Needed & More

30Sep
Categories: Trusted Contributor Comments
- imeem wipes the slate clean with $6 million in new funding. (TechCrunch)
- Analysis: Album Sales Decline Slows To 6% in September, Track Equivalent Albums (TEAs) Down 4%. (Billboard)
- TubeRadio is a new internet music video player. Think of it as iTunes meets Youtube meets Last fm. The free online app allows users to create a playlist, find rare videos and share them with friends.
- Music biz still in need of "radical overhaul" to thrive - The music industry is stuck in a rut and it needs to make some radical changes if it wants to stop bleeding money, according to Forrester. The firm has several suggestions for how to overhaul music products and insists that they must be consumer-friendly, not business-oriented. (ars)
- Record Label Embraces Pirate Party BitTorrent Tracker - Last week TorrentFreak reported that the Canadian Pirate Party had established its own BitTorrent tracker. The Pirates hope to show that BitTorrent is not a threat, but a great tool for artists to promote their work. Record label Thorny Bleeder agrees and is now offering free music via the tracker. (TorrentFreak)
- Chris Ancliff, formerly General Counsel, EMI Group, has been appointed General Counsel - International, Warner Music Group. In this newly created position, Ancliff will report to Paul Robinson, WMG's Executive Vice President and General Counsel, and will have responsibility for all of the Group's legal and business affairs activities outside the U.S. He will be based in London.
- Just in from our buddy Virgil at indie Suburban Home: "We just launched a digital download store within our online store! To commemorate this news, we are giving away a Suburban Home/Chad Price Fall/Winter 2009 FREE digital sampler. Please help us spread the news. I am gonna go grab a beer."
Tags: blogging, Social media
Get Paid When You Get Played

30Sep
Categories: For Musicians Comments

From Disc Makers blog, Echoes…

by RANDY CHERTKOW AND JASON FEEHAN on SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 ·
in FAST FORWARD, PROMOTION

Practical advice to earn you twice the royalties you think you’re owed

No musician can afford to miss out on a potential source of income. So if you’re a songwriter, and not a member of a Performance Rights Organizations (PRO) like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or SOCAN (Canada), you could be leaving money on the table. It’s not difficult to join one of these organizations, and as an independent, there are ways to enroll that allow you to maximize your royalties and double what you might think you’re eligible for.

Unfortunately, to understand PROs and what they can do for you, it’s important to understand how copyright works for music. So even though “brief” and “copyright” should probably never go into the same sentence, an overview to explain why PROs exist, how they pay songwriters, and how they are different from other organizations that collect money for musicians (like Harry Fox) is necessary.

Two copyrights in one
Let’s say you grab your guitar, hit record on your 1978-vintage tape recorder, and make up a new song. Congratulations, you now own two copyrights. One is the recording that you just made. The second is the new song. The song can be recorded again, written down as little black dots, performed live, covered, copied, put in a movie, or turned into a ringtone.

Continue reading the entire article here….

Tags: blogging, Marketing, Music Business, Music Marketing
Billy Bragg On Piracy: “A war that no one can win.”

30Sep
Categories: Trusted Contributor Comments

Billy Bragg has been one of the UK's most politically active and outspoken musicians for several decades. Now in an open letter first published in The Guardian, Bragg weighs in on the current three-strikes controversy and offers his own alternatives. Like the talented songwriter that he is, Bragg starts with the hook:

The only way to tackle illegal filesharing is not suppression, but to offer reliable, easy to use, fairly priced alternativesLast week the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) convened a meeting of artists at Air Studios in London with the intention of seeking common ground on the issue of what to do about illegal filesharing before the end of the government's consultation period, which has now closed.

The statement that we produced is the first real sign that artists are ready and willing to become involved in the debate about the shape of the new digital music industry. There were many views in the room, from those who wished to disconnect illegal downloaders, to those who believed that there was no technical solution to the loss of revenue that the recording industry is experiencing.

Despite our differences of opinion, we were able to agree on bandwidth restriction as final sanction for egregious offenders. We held back from suspension of internet accounts because we felt it was disproportionate and punitive, but most of all, we held back because we didn't believe it was in the best interests of our profession.

The suppression of illegal filesharing is a long-term, highly expensive, technologically fraught strategy with serious implications for personal privacy. It is questionable whether any of the money saved will ever find its way to the artists who have suffered loss of income.

While the recording industry continues to make threatening noises towards kids who swap music files among themselves, our real enemies, the illegal download sites that make money giving our music away for free, are disappearing off the radar into darknets.

This is a war that no one can win.

As the pirates always manage to stay one step ahead of the latest clampdown, the recording industry will continue to ask legislators for ever tighter sanctions, leading ultimately to an internet controlled by and for big business, which can only be accessed by those willing to pay.

The loss to the creative community would be catastrophic. The internet has made it possible for individual artists to make, distribute and promote their own works with the active support of P2P networks. For new artists to flourish, it is vital that the internet remain free to all.

We believe that this sense of freedom is the key to constructing a viable digital business model for the recording industry. The successful music sites such as MySpace, YouTube and Spotify all offer free access. The next step is to create "feels like free" services. We need legal networks licenced by record companies that give users access to all the music they want for a subscription fee. We need P2P communities that spread the word for new artists while offering advertising platforms so that an artist whose work is downloaded can receive reciprocal payment from advertising revenue.

Artists must be prepared to work with the record industry and with legislators on a programme of education aimed at increasing awareness of the damaging aspects of illegal downloading on the livelihoods of the creative community and those who work with us to produce our work.

However, we will not be able to marginalise the pirates until we can offer accessible, easy to use, fairly priced alternative business models that people will actually want to buy their music from. While we may never be able to sink The Pirate Bay, the challenge we face is to make it look boring, shoddy and unreliable.
- Billy Bragg

Tags: blogging, Social media
Bandzoogle Hits A $1.5 Million Milestone

30Sep
Categories: Trusted Contributor Comments

Self-service music web site builder and artist services site Bandzoogle has just hit $1.5 million market in commission free sales for artists using their services.

Founder Chris Vinson also tells me that last email Bandzoogle launched Twitter integratio and tomorrow they're adding Facebook sync. MySpace sync is just a few weeks away as wel. The goal is for Bandzoogle to become the hub for all a musician's content.

Tags: blogging, Social media
Trouble In The Orchard: CEO Scholl Exits, Staff Cut

30Sep
Categories: Trusted Contributor Comments

Greg Scholl, President and CEO of indie distribution powerhouse The Orchard is exiting the company amid overall staff reductions of 20%. Scholl is landing on his feat with a new undisclosed position already in place when he leaves the publicly traded company on November 1st.
But 20% or about 20 of the 100 or so Orchard's staffers will not be so lucky. “Reducing staff is always a difficult decision, but in this case, the responsible one, and it better positions The Orchard for future growth and profitability,” Scholl said in a statement. Other cost reductions are planned including taking advantage of technology efficiencies and aligning costs with "a slower-than-expected digital music market growth rate".

As of October 1st, Danny Stein will become interim CEO, supported by an expanded role for current Orchard General Manager Brad Navin. Stein is also CEO of eMusic and both eMusic and The Orchard are controlled by investment firm Dimensional Associates. Board Chairman Michael Donahue will lead a search committee to evaluate candidates and identify a new leader for the company.
Scholl led The Orchard through a tumultuous period that included the transition from an also-ran digital channel for indie musicians to a top tier distributor for many signifigant indie labels. Along the way, the company merged with a competitor, went public and bought the assets of bankrupt indie label TVT including its physical distribution arm. Scholl positioned The Orchard as a company competing on service rather than price and built an infrastucture to back his claims.

But even as Scholl exits business will continue at The Orchard. “While we are disappointed to lose Greg, The Orchard has one of the best and most experienced teams in the industry and we will continue to offer existing and new clients the high level of service and innovation they have come to expect,” said Danny Stein, an Orchard Director and in-coming Interim CEO. “Over the past two years, The Orchard has completed two major acquisitions and invested in technology efficiencies to make our global team more productive. As a result, and also considering the digital music market grew less quickly than we expected it to grow during 2009, we have eliminated positions and implemented other cost saving measures,” continued Stein.
About The Orchard
Headquartered in New York and London with operations in 25 markets around the world, The Orchard (NASDAQ: ORCD) was founded in 1997. The company is a global leader in digital marketing and distribution for music and video, driving sales across more than 730 digital storefronts and mobile carriers in 69 countries.

Tags: blogging, Social media